Russia invades Ukraine - 3 - from 23 Oct 2022

Is that about the oil measures?
It’s all over the Indian media, no statement, but discussed in the margins of a G7 meeting.
I wonder the extent to which Modi could enforce it. In any event, there is a high level of disregard of Delhi laws in the richer Provinces.

Shhh. Don’t tell the Russkies about the Brit yacht.

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Perun does cover the oil aspect of the Russian economy.

I’ve some experience in this space, so this is my take. Crude oil sales is an interesting process. Ships will be bid on during transit, with the ship sometimes changing destination multiple times while at seas as the cargo is bought and sold. Problematic shipments will drop in price until they find a buyer. Some shipments would become dirt cheap.

If I was a buyer considering Russian crude, I wouldn’t offer much at all. Why would I? There’s not many buyers and the Russians have no storage capacity. Everything they make has to be immediately loaded onto a ship. It’s a buyers market, with Russia desperately trying to offload the crude to anyone who will consider buying it. India and China know they aren’t bidding against other buyers, so can just screw over the Russians. The sanctions and price cap add to that dynamic, but Russia is being screwed either way.

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I got the impression that the Indian deal was more of a gesture, as they can screw the Russians on price in any event.
It also assists Indian anti-inflation measures.
There was a recent media report that, since the allies imposed the price cap, Indian customers have been paying in non-dollars, including the UAE dirham and the rouble.
India is now the third largest importer of Russian oil.

I’m not sure of what the fact is in the (taken as a complete sentence) first statement that relates to your assertion. I know there has been a lot of criticism of the lack of more wide-scale anti-war protests of the russian public in general (except in the first month) and the perceived apathy of the russian population towards the war crimes committed by russian forces. We have previously discussed the difficulty of getting the true picture of russian sentiment towards the war on this thread many times. But as of up until now, I haven’t really heard of any assertations to the effect that russians who don’t support the war are hated by true russians outside of Solovyov, russian propaganda and Putin himself (The “Scum and Traitors” speech)

Thanks for the article - a succinct russian version of Classic Textbook Police State 101 and shows how it is being put into effect.

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The Russian National Guard, established by Putin in 2016 and under his direct command, has an estimated 340k guardsmen operating in 84 units across Russia.
In March 2022, it was reported that over 100 Caucasus based guards had been sacked for refusing to operate in Kyiv civilian control.
They lost an appeal against their sacking.

The old Russian hands have commented that, the further from Moscow, the more chaotic the administration and application of Moscow laws.
I saw this in Tashkent during the Soviet era
There was a dinner and music concert in some huge hall. The locals dispensed with Russian themes, wild Middle East music ( including Israeli) frenetic dancing accompanied by smashing of plates to the music. The Russian guards, outnumbered , watched on sourly and were ignored. I stayed in my corner, resisted offers to join in.

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The EU Commission has announced an initiative to engage 15 industries in 11 Member States to ramp up production of munitions.
Additionally, the relevant Commission officials will be visiting Slovakia and Bulgaria to explore options for increasing ammunition production.
Presumably the carrot is the funding recently announced under the EU Peace Plan.
Imports of arms into Europe increased by an estimated 93% in 2022, with Ukraine the world’s third largest importer, after Qatar and India.

Selling snow to eskimos. There’s logic here, Saudis can export crude to elsewhere and max their refineries on cheap Russian inputs. Still funny.

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Twitter Bakhmut battles continue




Looked very interesting but unfortunately that’s a fake :frowning:

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There were rumours that Kadyrov was poisoned but in this new video Kadyrov doesn’t look that bad. Date of video wasn’t specified.





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Wagner Group adverts for a schools youth military Cadetship, on a Kola Peninsula Education Dept website, have been removed. The promo included youth camps in Crimea.
The Education Dept said the website had been hacked.
The Russian Govt already has a school youth army program ( some as low as 8yo have enlisted)

Interesting calculations that the Russians started the war with around 2000 active T-72s and as little as 1500 left in storage ranging from good to terrible condition. The rest were in other soviet nations or have been sold since 1991.

There’s been 1000 visually identified and maybe a total of 1400 lost. That probably leaves 600 active duty tanks, plus maybe 600-1000 refurbished tanks. So already the T-72 fleet is smaller than the start of the war and soon good condition tanks in storage will have run out.

Explains the push to get T-62 out of storage.

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And 10k posts in yet another thread. Hopefully the next thread ends on a brighter note. Currently the war is a slog of pure attrition, a numbers game playing with relative suffering. Gone is the exchange territory for time play, Ukraine looks to have decided to fight to hold everything. With the fog of war, it’s not possible to know if holding Bakhmut is the right or wrong play. It is a gamble, I hope one that pays off. They are probably at the point where having gone all in they can’t withdraw without massive losses.

But the Russians aren’t happy, so hopefully that’s a good sign of things to come.

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